


The Past is Only a Vehicle to the Future

by athena_crikey



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, Some Fluff, really vague Gin/Zura, your average stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8003887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps this is a better battlefield for our youth. Even if it means they will lack the heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Past is Only a Vehicle to the Future

Gintoki only goes along to the district dojo tournament because Shinpachi promises him free food. The fact that for months Shinpachi has been practicing for it, talking about it even above the red ink in their bankbook (although, of course, not above Otsuu), and handing out flyers to everyone he’s ever spoken to in his life has absolutely nothing to do with it.

With the sword-banning edict, drumming up pupils has been difficult even for big-name schools. The dojos promote an annual tournament to show off their styles, with the money raised through admission and booth sales going to the winners of the tournament. The money itself isn’t much, but the promotion is vital. Shinpachi, it turns out, attends every year on behalf of Tendou Mushin Ryuu with support from former members in the hopes of picking up some pupils, or some cash, or both. 

The tournament is held in one of the local dojos, its grounds decorated and filled for the day with stalls selling all the usual festival foods, games and toys. Although the dojo itself even with all its shoji open is not ideal for crowd viewing, Gintoki doubts anyone has ever suggested the event be moved to a new gymnasium with bleacher seating. The kendoka of Edo are a mixed group, but as Gintoki, Kagura and Sadaharu stroll through the garden eating barbequed corn, unsurprisingly very few of them are sporting modern styles. 

Kagura finishes her current cob and sniffs the air. “Gin-chan, I smell takoyaki!” She swivels like a bloodhound and points. “There! Let’s get some!” 

For once, Gintoki doesn’t argue. As a participating dojo’s two registered helpers, they are permitted free food, and if Kagura eats enough now she may only need one bushel of rice for dinner. He watches as she scoops up her tray, and begins to pop the hot balls into her mouth. “When’s Shinpachi competing?” she asks, words coming out in one long garbled spray. 

Gintoki consults the program, printed small on cheap paper, and then glances at the men currently fighting in the dojo. “After the next school,” he answers, idly dodging a pick-pocket and then tripping him as he hurries by. The man makes a foolish bid to carry on forwards rather than falling, and propels himself right into the koi pond. Half the line from the okonomiyaki stand deserts to see what the fuss is about, and Kagura hums happily and makes a bee-line for it.

“I think kendo’s great,” she tells him enthusiastically, as they queue. The man in front of them, dressed in a gi with MURAYAMA written on the back, looks over his shoulder to give her a smile. “Everyone focuses on their puny little swords so much I can punch them right out without even trying! Look at those morons waving them around above their heads. BAM, broken nose first try.” She gestures at the current pair of competitors facing off on the dojo’s sparkling floor. 

The man’s smile freezes over into a sickly parody of a grin, and he revolves back around as if on ball bearings. Gintoki, who lost his remaining shreds of susceptibility to embarrassment when they took in Sadaharu, doesn’t bother to perform damage control. It would only make things worse, anyway.

He watches the introduction of the next two dojos while Kagura inhales her food. The only requirements to enter the tournament are that the dojo has at least one student and is registered in Edo’s Kendojo association, so quality control is next to non-existent. Of the two groups currently sparring one is average, the other abysmal. Shinpachi will be up soon.

Kagura finishes her plate and lets Sadaharu lick it clean. She starts to head for the shooting booth, but Gintoki snags the back of her shirt. “We should get a good place.” She sags, but doesn’t complain. 

Pushing through a crowd isn’t difficult with a bear-sized dog, and they make it to the front rows with ease, as one of the competitors is disarmed with a sharp wrist strike and steps back in defeat. Kagura snorts contemptuously. 

“See? One good gut punch and the match would’a been his.” Kagura crosses her arms, clearly disappointed by the lack of violence.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gintoki catches a glimpse of something round and white that feels worryingly familiar, but he ignores it. “That’s not allowed. Swords only.”

“You would’a punched him,” she says, sulkily. 

“Formal tournaments aren’t the real world,” interrupts a low voice from directly behind them. “They are exhibits of form and precision, not survival. That’s why Gintoki never won any.”

Knowing what he’s going to see, Gintoki turns anyway and comes face to face with Zura, dressed in a cheerleader’s black uniform complete with white headband and pony-tail, looking sanctimonious as always. His ridiculous duck is standing next to him, garnering almost as many nervous looks as Sadaharu.

“Zura! And Ellie!” exclaims Kagura.

“Katsura,” Zura tells her politely. “It’s good to see you, Leader.”

“Gin-chan, did you really enter these boring things?” Kagura looks up at him, and he can sense mountains of scorn in his future. Shinpachi’s another matter: it’s his other job. But Gintoki has no such excuse.

“Maa, it was a long time ago. Zura did too,” he adds, quick to push another man off the cliff before him. “I don’t remember him winning any, either.”

“I came in third once,” protests Zura. “And only because I was sabotaged.”

“Really?” asks Kagura, eager for gore.

Gintoki speaks before Zura can open his pompous mouth. “Not unless you count willful stupidity. No one forced you to eat those three bowls of ramen right before the match.”

“They offered it to me,” retorts Zura darkly, as if they had poured it down his throat. Gintoki rolls his eyes.

“Why are you here anyway, Zura?”

Behind them, someone declares a head strike, followed by a clattering thud. The match is called, 

“Shinpachi-kun invited me last week in the market. Elizabeth wanted to come as well – she’s never seen a kendo tournament.”

Gintoki glances at the mutant duck. As usual, it looks as though its mind is elsewhere – or entirely absent.

“Me too,” says Kagura. “But don’t get too excited, Ellie. Gin-chan says they’re not allowed to kill each other.” She steps over to begin an involved conversation with the thing, which is certain to be entirely one-way. The men on the dojo floor clear off, to be replaced by Shinpachi’s dojo and his opponents. Gintoki turns to watch as they perform the opening bows, Zura drifting up to stand beside him. 

It’s not a very even match. Shinpachi’s students haven’t really belonged to a dojo for more than a year and clearly weren’t prodigies before the long break, and while Shinpachi himself is strong in kata and spirit, he doesn’t have enough formal sparring experience. As Zura said before, this isn’t the real world, and the art of surviving on a battlefield is only a distant cousin to that of winning points in a show tournament. 

Gintoki and Zura stand unmoving, watching the strikes and parries, while all around them the crowd ebbs and flows. Gintoki evaluates the strokes with a professional eye, and sees potential, if not mastery. 

“Perhaps this is a better battlefield for our youth,” says Zura quietly, arms crossed with his white-gloved hands resting on his elbows, without looking away from the match. “Even if it means they will lack the heart.”

“They won’t. Not all of them.” Gintoki watches Shinpachi score a point with a quick upwards strike and sees the brief thrill of success in his face before it’s replaced by concentration. He makes a strong attempt at a parry, but his opponent’s footwork is faster and he loses the point. He regroups, and pushes back twice as hard to win another point. “We laid down our swords, not our spirits.”

“And they’ll never know what that sacrifice meant. True swordsmanship will die with us, Gintoki.”

Gintoki looks at him, away from the play match with its imaginary points. “Good. What do you see there, Zura? Because I see spirit without bloodshed, strength without war. The world doesn’t need another Shiroyasha, or another Katsura Kotarou. No tradition’s worth that.”

They watch the rest of the match in silence, nodding as Shinpachi wins his heat with a close feint, and then flinching simultaneously as one of the students misreads a strike and gives up the point that loses the dojo the match. The crowd murmurs, some segments breaking off to go for food or the bathroom while others join to watch the next competition.

“Sometimes I wonder what would have become of us, had we never left the village. Had we grown up like Shinpachi-kun.” Zura turns away to stand with his shoulder against Gintoki, facing the opposite direction. 

“You would still be a morose idiot, while I’d still be making my own way in the world,” says Gintoki. It’s so much easier than trying to imagine it.

“And an unredeemable slacker.” Zura glances at him, white headband cutting across his forehead like a hitai ate above his dark eyes; right now they remind Gintoki of hoarse throats and bloody steel. “Somehow, I can never seem to imagine it.” He moves off into the crowd, voice drifting along behind him, “Tell Shinpachi-kun he did well.” 

“Thanks for spreading your gloom, you bastard,” hisses Gintoki. But a moment later Shinpachi comes running out of the change rooms with a grin on his face; Gintoki plasters a wide smile onto his face, and goes to congratulate him on his personal victory. 

When he goes to bed that night, Gintoki has some strange feeling he’ll dream of a world where Sakata Gintoki and Katsura Kotarou grew up in a village without war, got regular jobs and lived normal, everyday lives. Possibly even together.

What he actually dreams of is fried eggplant.


End file.
